Oral History Interview with Catherine Warner

BETSY BRINSON: . . . 2000. This is an interview with Catherine Warner. The interviewer is Betsy Brinson and we’re doing it—conducting the interview in Lexington, Kentucky. Catherine, just say a word or two. Just give me your full name.

CATHERINE WARNER: Okay. Catherine Rose Warner.

BRINSON: Rose?

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And Catherine is spelled with . . .

WARNER: With a C, yes. [pause]

BRINSON: Okay. Well, thank you very much for agreeing to talk with me today.

WARNER: You’re welcome.

BRINSON: Let’s just begin a little bit about you. If you would, tell me where and when you were born, for example.

WARNER: Okay. I was born in Springfield, Kentucky, which is about forty-five miles down BG Parkway, uh, in 1954, of course. And, uh, the second oldest to--of eleven children of Martha Warner. And we came up here when I was . . .

BRINSON: Warner? W-A-R-N-E-R?

WARNER: Yes. And she—we moved up here with my grandfather, my grandmother and them back when I was about four or five years old. So we’ve been here ever since.

BRINSON: In Kentucky.

WARNER: In Lexington.

BRINSON: Do you still have any family in, uh . . .

WARNER: Springfield? Oh yes, I have plenty of them. Everybody in Springfield is kin. [laughing]

BRINSON: Do you get back and forth at all?

WARNER: Yeah, we do. Family reunions and also Homecoming is every first Saturday in August.

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me a little bit about your early education.

WARNER: Okay. Well, you know, that’s—it, it’s hard for me to think about that because when I was going through it, I didn’t think that it was going to be as important as it is right now to me. Going to the all-black schools, of course, Booker T. Washington, Constitution—‘cause we moved from East End to West End a lot when I was younger. And we primarily stayed in West End as I got older. Went to Douglass—that’s where I graduated from--Douglass from the sixth grade. And that’s when—I think it was in sixty-nine--is when the integration started, and I was bused to Leestown for my seventh grade; but I had went through Douglass for like three years. And, and that was the transition, that I don’t feel like that I learned anything since I left Douglass, you know. And as I look back on my education and experience, from the time I went to Leestown it was all about fighting. You know, fighting for independence, fighting from--just being accepted, trying to assimilate, you know. It, it was all about interaction, I guess. And, and it was—and I say that because I’ve been reflecting back on it, you know, as I think about education and how important it is for me right now, and how they demeaned education to me at that point; and where I didn’t feel like that I wasn’t important enough or couldn’t learn enough, you know. So I guess the last time I learned something was probably the sixth grade at Douglass Elementary School. Everything else from that point has been—I did what I had to do to get through and get by, because everybody was so afraid and so intimidated by you that you didn’t have to do that much. And, unfortunately, I cheated myself in doing that, but I did what I thought I was surviving to do, you know.

BRINSON: Well, let’s talk about that. Do you think that your experience—how would you describe your experiences overall while you attended the all-black schools?

WARNER: At the time, I—I’m just trying to like remember back, but at the time I felt comfort. You know, it was comfortable. It was, it was around teachers who didn’t, didn’t isolate you or, or, or judge you because that was who they were also. It was fun. My friends that I met then are still my friends. I—it was just—I don’t know, I guess it was comfort. It was right up the street from my house. We walked home and everybody was in the same, I guess, economic level so you didn’t feel like there was one class above—I mean, there were a few—but nobody paid attention to that because we were all struggling to, to get ahead, I guess. We played together. We had our little summer movies up there in the back of Douglass school where they’d show them on the brick wall. I remember those days where the King Kong movies and stuff. So it was fun. You know, I remember it being fun, but I remember my music teacher, Miss Grimsley, when we got ready to graduate from the sixth grade and she said, uh, she said, “You all don’t understand. This is going to be the biggest change you’ve ever made in your life.” And at the time, we were like, “Oh please. Come on,” you know, “You’re just saying that. How can it be? This is better. We’re getting ready to go to new schools with clean windows and polished floors.” You know, “How can that be any worse than where we are right now?” And . . .

BRINSON: Were you at that point going . . .

WARNER: To Leestown.

BRINSON: And that was still an all-black school?

WARNER: Oh no, no, Leestown was white. Right. We were integrating it at that point. And, you know, it was—and what we saw was this brick building over there that was supposedly the new thing, the new tech—I guess as far as buildings were concerned, the best building that we could be going to from, from Douglass. They had the big picture windows where Douglass was just barely the regular windows. Uh, they had, you know, the, the—was it tile floors? And we had old wooden floors up at the school. So it was a big difference for us, and we saw that as an opportunity to, to be better than what we thought we were, you know. And, and now that I look back on it, it was the worst thing that I think I could have ever done.

BRINSON: So the physical plant itself was, was different and better?

WARNER: Right. Right.

BRINSON: What about the teachers . . .

WARNER: Oh, very . . .

BRINSON: . . . and the textbooks and . . .

WARNER: The textbooks were new, of course. They were new books. We got to put our names in them. You know, it was new but as far as the learning, I think—like I said before—I don’t think that I learned anything. I think—I know I knew how to do the work because I did the work, but as far as—but I spent most of my time trying to assimilate, trying to fit in because the culture was so different. And, and they made you feel like if you didn’t then you wasn’t anybody, you know. So I spent a lot of time trying to get recognized, you know, get somebody to say, ‘Here, I’m over here.’ Because teachers didn’t—they may have paid attention to you if your parents were college graduates or, or, you know, I’d say the Sykeses and the ( ) and people like that because their parents were sort of the political arena around here. But if you was just a everyday person, it was hard to get them to give you the attention that you required.

BRINSON: You began Leestown in your seventh . . .

WARNER: Right. Right.

BRINSON: You were about—how old were you then?

WARNER: Twelve. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay.

WARNER: And, like I said, at that time—and I remember distinctly going to a Jesse Clark football game, and I remember them writing on the bus: ‘Go Home Niggers.’ You know, on the bus. And it hurt because we had tried so hard to fit in, and to see that, you know, that was—I don’t know, I guess at that time, it bothered me; but I was even more determined to fit in, to get the, the white girls over there to like me or get the teachers to think of me. So I became probably more of the class clown more so than the, the intellectual that I know I could have been. And it, and it, and you know, you just wanted to be liked. You know, for some reason that was a switch from trying to be at Douglass because, you know, it didn’t bother you that nobody didn’t like you or—because we were all going to go home to the same neighborhood, to the same church, to the same grocery store. So--but these were people that I felt like--that I wanted to fit in with; that, you know, you wanted to do the things they were doing. You know, all of a sudden you got to see people with homes in Meadowthorpe. That was, you know--at that time that was the high-class neighborhood, I guess. But, you know, it was, it was just different. It was very different

BRINSON: And tell me about your high school years.

WARNER: Well, we went to Bryan Station and it continued over there. That’s where I think I became back to my senses and became more radical, (laughing) as they say. I joined Micro—I mean, Lexington CORE when I was about fourteen years old; and from that point became more interested in trying to find Catherine, find the black side of me, uh, again.

BRINSON: What is Lexington CORE?

WARNER: Uh, Congress for Racial Equality.

BRINSON: I thought that’s what it was. Okay.

WARNER: Yeah, I joined that through Mike—uh, through Ronnie Berry and them up at--it was here, uh, part of that was up on Georgetown Street at the time. And we had, you know, we would do marches, we would do signs, we would try to do things that was going—you know, growing the Afro; doing all the things again that, that signified unity again within the black community. And, uh, there was some highlights. I mean, Dunbar—I mean, Bryan Station became, you know, my reviving years as far as just wanting to be me. You know, being accepted as me. I had the Afro. Angela Davis became my hero, uh, hero. I did sit-ins and they wouldn’t do nothing. I weighed about eighty pounds, and they’d just pick me up and tell me to go on to class, ‘cause I was standing there with my red, black and green bands on.

BRINSON: You were a high school student?

WARNER: Yes.

BRINSON: And what year did you graduate?

WARNER: Seventy-two.

BRINSON: Seventy-two. Okay. Now tell me a little bit about the sit-ins.

WARNER: Well, I just--because they would do little things. It was still a lot of racist things going on at Dunbar—I mean, at Bryan Station. And I would just, just go over there and just say, “We need to do a sit-in and protest against certain things they were doing.” And they would just tell me to go sit down or something. I mean, the principals really kind of didn’t pay any attention to it, but to me it was a signal, you know, that I needed to do something. ‘Cause they were still doing stuff like, you know, the kid--they weren’t giving us the grades that we thought we earned. They wasn’t, uh, there were things—they were only interested in the athletic ability of the guys, and not really looking at the, the academic part of our lives, you know. And it was—they were still choosing the ones they thought were either academically, or they thought was more intellectual than the others. They were making a big difference and they showed it.

BRINSON: I know that CORE was active here in the sit-ins in the early sixties, but you would have been too young . . .

WARNER: No, I didn’t participate in that. I just remember one time going down to S.S. Kresge’s when I was little, and they wouldn’t let us come in. We had to stand there while every white person got served, and then we had to—we ordered our food and we had to take it out front and eat it. I remember doing that as a little girl.

BRINSON: Right.

WARNER: And I remember going to the Opera House, you know, and having to sit up in the balcony; and, you know, while the white kids were going in sitting in the bott—lower arena. And that was always something because, you know, at that time—and you knew the difference, you know. So when we got to Leestown and Bryan Station, all these things played back in your mind. What you had to go through just to--being black in Lexington. And it was always horrifying because you was scared, you know, you didn’t know what they were going to do. You didn’t—you’d heard all the stories. And I remember the--you know, everybody always said, “You never do this. You never look them in the eye. You never—you can’t go across that street over there after a certain time.” You know. “They would beat you up, you know.” So you always stayed in fear. You knew where your boundaries were. Even though they were imaginary boundaries, you knew where they were. So . . .

BRINSON: I want to ask you about CORE. I’m actually sort of surprised to hear that they were still in existence . . .

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: . . . when you were in high school. How—do you know how long before they actually . . .?

WARNER: I think they went out like probably—now I was still in it in . . . I’d say seventy I was--I was still in it. And that’s when they changed it to Micro-City. You know, they went from Lexington CORE to Micro-City then.

BRINSON: Okay.

WARNER: I’d say back in the seventies I was still in it, ‘cause I was probably in the tenth, yeah, in the tenth grade.

BRINSON: And there were youth activities obviously . . .

WARNER: Oh yeah, we had the Little Bamboo Hut, we called it. It was a little club over here off of Savage Street, a teenage club. We would go there. We would—of course, they would do the pageant stuff, Miss Black Lexington Pageants. We would walk from up here off Georgetown Street to Savage Street to have club meetings. You know, it was a lot of things being interacted. I didn’t, wasn’t involved in the heavy things that, that Dr. Berry and a bunch of the others were doing. I was just involved in the youth part of it, you know, which was real strong at that time because that was how things got done, you know.

BRINSON: Tell me a little bit about—if you can—the size of the youth group, like how many young people actually participated in that.

WARNER: You know, um, I would say maybe twenty-five or thirty at that time that was involved in it. A lot of them were, uh--there were some come from East End and West End. I don’t know if you know the dynamics of East and West End. But . . .

BRINSON: No.

WARNER: Well, a lot of people came from all over Lexington from the black communities; but, you know, there would be probably—since it was located in West End--we were there a lot of the time because that was our home away from home. You know, when you want to get out of the house, you would go up there and start doing little things up there. And it was so small—the building up here was so small--that when we did have meetings, we’d have to go to the Bamboo Hut; which would include people from the East End. So it kind of, like--you know, at one point, we may have ten people up here but when we got over here it might be twenty-five, thirty or forty people. So it kind of depends on where things were held and what you were trying to do.

BRINSON: Let me go back . . .

WARNER: And that’s how Micro-City pretty much started forming was through the Lexington CORE, and those meetings with the youth. And, of course, at that time there were no summer jobs and things like that going on. So that’s how that all started forming.

BRINSON: Uh, besides Ron Berry, who were some of the other leaders of, uh, CORE at that time?

WARNER: Chuck Powell was, uh—I remember Chuck Powell and Ron Berry. Uh . .

BRINSON: Chuck Powell?

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: P-O-W-E-L-L?

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Is he still around?

WARNER: Yes, he’s—I saw him not too long ago. I’m trying to think . . . who else was in there? I know Julius—a bunch of brothers, you know, would come in and out. I don’t know how active they were. Uh, but there was a whole list of them, and I’m trying to remember who they were.

BRINSON: A woman that used to be at UK, named Abby Marlette. Have you ever heard that name at all?

WARNER: Uh . . .

BRINSON: I know she was active in CORE before you were.

WARNER: Yeah. She’s a tall, thin white lady? Yes, uh-huh. I remember her being in it. I mean, I remember her being around . . .

BRINSON: And I think she helped Ron write some of the early funding grants . . .

WARNER: Yeah. She probably did. Like I said, being young like that, I didn’t really know what was going on. To me, it was a way of expressing myself, so I didn’t get into the politics and the, and the particulars of how they got things funded and stuff. I knew Roy Ennis was the uh, uh, head of CORE, Lexington--CORE Nationally. We had to learn all that. But as far as who of the other adults that was there, I know Chuck Powell was kind of like the pro tem chair, or something. And I’m sure Miss Otear-Orear and all those people, I’m sure they were very active in it. I’m not . . .

BRINSON: Who was that?

WARNER: Miss Otear-Orear, the lady that died not too long ago. Uh, I think they’re trying to get . . .

BRINSON: How do you spell her name?

WARNER: Otear. Let me see. It’s: O-T-E-A-R. Orear, O-R-E-A-R. She used to live right up here on ( ) Avenue. They’re trying . . .

BRINSON: O-R-E-A-R.

WARNER: Uh-huh. And I just remember those people being around. And most of all I remember--not so much people being around in CORE--but I remember the people who were active in the community that kind of kept us, kept us kind of focused, which was, uh, I think it was Captain Withrow. He was probably one of the favorites. That was when the relationships between the, the Police Department and the black community, to me was, was real good; because the black police officers took an interest in the black community. Uh, Captain Withrow would just come up and he would just be there, you know, in the community with us. I remember him going out doing--sowing grass in the projects, you know. He would get up on Saturday mornings, and be out there early in the morning putting grass seeds out and putting hay out in the yard, making us—and he always told us, “Clean up the yards. When you see paper, pick it up,” you know, ‘cause it represents you.” And at night we would be out in the Plaza, we would always hang out in the Plaza. He would come through and said, “All right, it’s time for you all”--and he knew us by name—“All right, Warner, it’s time for you to get home.” You know. So it, it was a comfort level in that I felt secure in my community, you know. And so that’s pretty much the same feeling I felt in my school because that was my community too. Uh, so when you took us out of that element, it was a whole different dynamic going on then, you know. It was like coming downtown, you know, it, it was foreign. A lot of strange things happened, a lot of sad things had took place downtown for us. So to feel good about being downtown was always like--feel good about downtown was oxymoron to me.

BRINSON: Catherine, what do you know about your family ancestry?

WARNER: Uh, not very much at all. Not very much at all. I know that coming from Springfield, that was a slave town. Uh, I know that there was a farm, you know, Catholic—( ) religious-wise it was Catholic dominated.

BRINSON: Your family or the farm?

WARNER: Farm and family. You know, the whole community is basically Catholic. Yeah. So submissive, you know, a whole—as far as, excuse me, personality--I know it was very submissive because of the way that they had to work. It was like land—you live on the land and work the farm and that’s how you, you made your life, your living, you know.

BRINSON: Did you know the grandparents or some grandparents?

WARNER: Yeah, I knew my grandparents. I knew my grandparents. I didn’t know—I knew my great-grandfather; I didn’t know my great-grandmother.

BRINSON: How did your family make their living?

WARNER: Farming. On the farm and also tobacco, housing tobacco. They—tobacco season and they would have re-dry. I don’t know if you ever heard of that.

BRINSON: Re-dry?

WARNER: Yeah, that’s—yeah, that’s a place called re-dry. They would always go and work that, that was during the tobacco season and stuff.

BRINSON: Like where you dry out tobacco?

WARNER: I guess. I never went in there. I just always heard them called re-dry, you know. And that’s where they would always work the, you know, work the land. They just were farmers, you know, and they did a lot of housekeeping and cooking and stuff like—they’re excellent cooks and they always cleaned houses and stuff. So that’s pretty much how they made it.

BRINSON: Your mother had a lot of children.

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Did she ever work outside the house?

WARNER: Oh yeah, my mother did day work. She also did cooking up here for, uh, the Catholic home. She worked at UK for years. She just retired from UK about three years ago. So, yeah, she’s always worked. I come from a large family and, and—I don’t know if you know Catholic backgrounds. There usually are a lot of kids in the family because of the anti-birth control thing; but, yeah, I mean, my grandfather on my father’s side was twenty-two kids. There’s twenty-two uncles and aunts and stuff like that so . . . and my mother comes from a family of nine. So, you know, we, you know, we come from a large family of kids. Eleven kids back then was like, that was good cause that was the whole thing about the more kids you had, the more kids you have to work the farm and do the, you know, stuff like that.

BRINSON: Do you know anything about your father’s family?

WARNER: Yeah. I know, uh, uh, my father—of course, he lives in Connecticut now—but my father and them was Catholic. They were from Lebanon, Kentucky, which was nine miles from Springfield which was farm—they did farming and also my grandfather was blind. He became blind about, probably right before I was born or either right after I was born. And so he, uh, so mostly he, of course, drew social security when they, when they finally got him to do it; was able to draw social security. But up until then they were just farmers, you know, most everybody just lived on the land and farmed it.

BRINSON: Okay. So you graduated from high school in 19 . . .

WARNER: Seventy-two.

BRINSON: . . . Seventy-two, and then what?

WARNER: Then I . . . let me see . . . I went to UK for about a semester. Uh, then I started working because at that time I had a son, had my first child. And, uh, I was working, worked at different places. And then I went--after I worked and got laid off ‘cause during that time it was like you worked at telephone company or whatever, it was during the strike time. I got laid off and then finally I went over to Central Vo-Tech for a year and from--graduated in August of seventy-five there, and got hired at Bank One--First Security at the time--in September of seventy-five. So I worked there for twenty-three years.

BRINSON: Okay. What was your semester at UK like before you . . .?

WARNER: Frightening. Very frightening, because it was like nobody wanted to help you. I didn’t understand because the way the school system was set up, it never taught me how to make the transition; that college was going to be this way and that high school’s this way. I thought that, that college was the same as high school. That when you go in you had to take all your elective subjects at the same time; and, you know, that was how it was going to be; and you took all your main subjects. So I go in ( ). Nobody told me that you spread that out, you know, to where—and I didn’t realize that the subjects was going to be that demanding, you know. You have five courses and, you know, you’re trying to do all your five electives. That was crazy thinking but nobody told me and nobody helped me, nobody even—it was trying to reach out and find somebody to help you schedule. It was horrifying. Walked into my sociology class, two hundred people in there, you know, and the professor sitting down here. It was, it was fearful, you know. It was like taking notes and doing all those things that I was not--I was foreign to because I didn’t learn those things in high school, you know. So that’s why I dropped out, you know, because . . .

BRINSON: To what degree were there other black students or black staff or faculty there in 1972, at least in what you were . . .?

WARNER: I don’t know. See, I don’t know. I knew there were some people going in with me, you know; and, and I chose going to UK because everybody was doing something. All my classmates were either going to college or going to the army, you know. They were doing one of the two. Everybody was getting away, doing something. So I wanted to go to school, and I—like I said, I had a child then—so what I was doing was going to school from eight to three and working from, uh, four till twelve at night. So, it, it got really—I couldn’t continue doing that, you know; and especially with the demands that school was putting on me. And then after I got--I dropped out, everybody said, “Well, you should know you don’t do this,” or “You don’t do that.” Well, I didn’t know that you didn’t take math, science and all that at the same time. You take one, one heavy and one light, you know. I didn’t know all that at the time.

BRINSON: How did you become a Community Advocate? Tell me your, your title again.

WARNER: Community Advocate?

BRINSON: Right.

WARNER: How did I get that job? How did I . . .?

BRINSON: There is training?

WARNER: Yeah.

BRINSON: What, what is that? What are the responsibilities?

WARNER: The responsibilities is exactly some of the things I’m doing now, is making sure that the services and programs of the Mayor’s Trainer Center offer gets out there in the community. And also be an advocate for the community to come back in and let our Director know, “Okay these are things they’re asking for in the community. What can we do to assist them as far as training and employment?” You know. And that’s mainly what we try to do is make sure people, if they want jobs, they have jobs. If they want some type of training, we can provide that, you know, depending on how they qualify for it. And, and it’s a fun job because it incorporates things I do in the community, but it also is fun because it takes the sting out of people coming to you saying they can’t find a job or they can’t find--they don’t know how to get in school or they don’t—‘cause I have answers for them. And that, that to me has been the best thing that happened to me is that no longer can people come up to me and say, “I can’t find a job.” I say, you know, “I’m sorry, there are jobs, you want them, you come down.” And if you’re determined and you really want something, I know now that they’re there, the information and resources are there. So . . .

BRINSON: And you said it, the job incorporates some of your community responsibilities like . . .

WARNER: Like the Roots and Heritage Festival, the Martin Luther King Celebration, the NIA Day Camp that we do for inner-city kids. So it, it allows me to still go out and do the things that I love doing and was doing, have been doing for fifteen years almost.

BRINSON: I want, in a few minutes, talk to you about some of those programs.

WARNER: Okay.

BRINSON: I want to move now to ask you if you remember when you first met, uh, Ann and Chester Grundy?

WARNER: Yeah, I met, uh, Ann and Chester back in eighty-six. And I met Ann first—well, I had known, uh, Ann and Chester. Uh, I had met Chester and Tolonnie one time in a—I used to live out the same end of town they lived on. I met them in a Rite Aid drugstore, uh, Begley’s is what it was called then, Begley’s Drugstore, off Alexandria. Uh, Tolonnie wanted some candy or something, and I was in the line behind them, and Chester didn’t have change. He’d already wrote his check out, and he didn’t have any more. And I paid for the candy for Tolonnie. (laughter—Brinson) But they don’t remember that and I, and I didn’t either until after I, I met them for the second time. But Ann, I met Ann at a—used to, someone was having a group of people over at Dunbar called A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste back in eighty-six, I guess, at Dunbar. And they were bringing out all the retired teachers, and just doing a whole lot, doing a whole program over there. And I went because at that time I was struggling with my kids in school, and trying to find an answer to why the system was the way that it was. And, and I was getting no answers from the people that, the teachers and administration that I was dealing with. So I went, curious and still that part of me, the radical part I guess, the assertive part of me, was still begging for a chance to come out, you know. Uh, so I went to the meeting and they formed these called NAG groups, Neighborhood Action Groups, that’s what they called. And I went to the one at Charles Young Center because at the time I lived on Breckinridge Street.

BRINSON: And—tell me the name of the center.

WARNER: Neighborhood Action Group . . . Charles Young Center.

BRINSON: Charles Young?

WARNER: Charles Young, uh-huh.

BRINSON: I’m going to stop here and turn the tape over.

WARNER: Okay.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE SIDE TWO

BRINSON: Okay. You were telling me . . .

WARNER: We met at the Charles Young Center. And it was like seven or eight of us that had been at that meeting that had come over to Charles Young. And when we got there, there was supposed to been a representative from the group of people who had started the, the first meeting. But nobody showed. So we called over to the Northside Library and said, “Look,” you know, “We’re here and nobody’s here to tell us what we need to do. The action plan is not.” So Ann came over at that time, introduced herself and just started—we started dialoging. And from there, uh--being a single mom with three kids, Ann would always drop something by my house, you know, whether it was milk, lettuce or something, just to—and, and would leave. She would always be bringing stuff, and it didn’t matter what it was; she would bring something to see if I needed it, you know. And we just formed a bond that way because when I needed a friend, she was there, you know, out of just doing that.

BRINSON: . . . turn that off . . . too cool in here . . .

WARNER: That’s fine.

BRINSON: Uh, I talked to Ann a good bit. We’ve done two or three sessions interviewing, and I’ve also interviewed Chester, and she mentions you. They both talk about you ( ) (laughter—Warner) and I’m wondering: how did the idea for the Roots and Heritage . . . tell me about how that originated.

WARNER: Well, as I said before, that was when all this happened with my kids in school and meeting Ann and—I think this all was designed, a Divine plan because it, it really brought out the old Catherine; the Catherine that probably would have been a lawyer or something somewhere, a politician somewhere in her life had she, the school system done just by me. Uh, but doing that, in fighting for all of that, I would go to them and ask for advice. And in doing that, the more advice I would get, the more assertive I became, the more things that they introduced me to, you know. And it was like, I got to get out of Lexington because during that time I think my travel was very limited. So as—getting out of Lexington meant I was introduced to a lot of different people, you know . .

BRINSON: Where did you go? Did you go with them on trips?

WARNER: With them on trips, yes. And, uh, some of them I went by myself, but it was like after I met people outside, they would invite me to come so I would go also. But, uh, just met people from New York, you know, different places that was progressive, you know; and places that I always feared going because I lived in Lexington, sheltered here; and, and the stories on TV and everything said, “Don’t go to those places”, you know. So I always had that fear about leaving up out of here.

BRINSON: Where did you go? Do you remember any . . .?

WARNER: Yeah, I went to New York, I, I went to Tennessee, I went to Alabama, Mississippi. I mean, I did—Florida—I did a whole lot of different travel ;and in doing that, especially New York, I, I, was there ‘cause I did a whole bun—I went to New York a whole lot. And going there, it was like every week they were having festivals. Some type of festival was going on. And I kept thinking, “Wow, this is great”, you know. “Why can’t we do this in Lexington?” But also at the time, we were doing NIA Day Camp. That was, like I said, the camp for inner-city kids, and we would do that at the Y. And we would house these kids from Louisville at my house and, you know--so we would do all these things. So there was a lot of things going on to build up to, to really the, the onset of Roots and Heritage. So NIA Day Camp was probably the beginning of my idea of, of introducing myself, re-introducing myself to my culture. And so—because Louisville at that time was a little bit more progressive than Lexington; they would come up here and teach dancing, African dancing and drumming and everything. And then they were having festivals in Louisville, and we would go down there and so--and every time I would go, I kept thinking, “Man, my mother needs to see this. My sister needs to”-You know, it was like, “Why can’t we do this?” And then one time I went to Tennessee State. They had a, a—in Nashville, they had a festival down there and a parade went through the neighborhood. And I kept thinking, “Man, people need to see this in Lexington. We are missing so much.” And I guess right after that we decided that we would—I joined the Neighborhood Association down here at Ohio and Chestnut Street. Ed Holmes was the president and I was the vice president. And, you know, he had—he’s coming from Cleveland, and here I am running all over the place just with all this excitement about what everybody else was doing across the country; and just saying, “Look I want to do something. I, I just, you know, we need to do something.” And of course, everybody was like, “Gosh, she’s just talking”, you know. And so he had already been introduced with festivals because he came from Cleveland, so we decided to, uh--and at the time, Mayor Baesler was doing these action match grants where you kind of—as long as you do sweat equity, you can have X amount. So we said, “Okay, why don’t we do something here on Breckinridge Street?” Because Breckinridge--I don’t know if you know--used to be where the trolley cars used to come up and down, so it’s a wide street. And so we had started the plans of doing that. We asked Chester—we paid Chester to do the grant writing which is this, right there, the plan that you have right there. We asked him to write that up for us and let us know what the possibilities of all this was. And he did. And so that was the beginning of it and we took it to—and at the time . . .

BRINSON: At this point, though, you were still working—you weren’t working for the city, you were working . . .

WARNER: Oh, I’ve always, yeah, I was working with the city. I just started . . .

BRINSON: Oh you were?

WARNER: I just started working for the city last year.

BRINSON: Right. So you were working for the bank . . .

WARNER: . . . for the bank.

BRINSON: Okay.

WARNER: And all of this was outside the bank. This had nothing to do with the bank, uh, but it had something to do with Catherine, you know. Uh, and so at the time Michael Wilson was the Councilman for this area, for that area, so what he and Scotty Baesler was doing, they had revitalized, uh, Deweese Street. They were renovating and doing all that stuff. And so Ed and I were, we were just devastated, and a lot of people were; and I think it was just, everybody was just upset about how Deweese Street was changing.

BRINSON: Let me stop you. For the transcriber, spell Deweese Street.

WARNER: D-E-W-E-E-S-E.

BRINSON: Thanks. Okay.

WARNER: And how Deweese Street was changing. And we knew and I knew that our kids was never going to know what we used to do and that we could still do it; because a lot of people had gotten very complacent. Uh, seems like the, the late seventies and eighties was the time when everything went dormant here in this town for African Americans. It was like nothing seemed to be moving, or nothing seemed to be progressing. Uh, everybody was at a standstill, nobody was actually thinking about, thinking ahead, what’s happening to our kids. What are they seeing? What are they not seeing enough of as adults? And it was scary. To me, it was a very scary time to be washing away people’s history because—and we had all these archeology students coming in the neighborhood and just digging and doing lots of—tearing up churches. I mean, the whole Kincaid, a lot of the streets that meant something to the African-American community was gone. So it was like, “What can we do to preserve this?”

BRINSON: Tell me what, tell me what the significance of Deweese Street and Kincaid Street is?

WARNER: Deweese Street and Kincaid, all that neighborhood right in there, uh, we had—we also had Jim Embry to do a whole history of that area which at the time; they used to call that Chicago Bottoms. And that’s where, you know, they would—the Lyric Theater was housed. That’s where people would come in—and I don’t know if you know the history of black entertainment, but they never got to stay in hotels or anything like that so what would happen, they would—at night they would travel from town to town and pretty well sleep on the bus, and then do their entertaining in different cities. So what they would try to do is if they went to Louisville, they would connect with Lexington; do a date. So that’s how they, they really did their entertaining. So they would come to Lyric because Lyric was known as the place to come and it was a showcase. So, I mean, they had people like Cab Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie; I mean, you name it, Tina Turner, everybody would come in here and just go to the Lyric, because at the time the Lyric was one of the, one of the first theaters to have those cloth seats that swing and, and the crushed velvet seats and the big—it was a beautiful place. And people wanted to be there; people wanted to show-off there. And that was where you learned what was happening in the town, what was happening in Louisville; what was happening in—‘cause people would come through and stop at the Lyric. So you found out the latest styles, latest dance and, you know, because at the time TV didn’t show—we didn’t have TVs that much and what they did show was not our culture. And the radio wasn’t giving us our culture. We would stay up late at night listening to Randy, you know, trying to hear the latest, uh, Motown sounds. So, you know, Lexington was disconnected. So, and, and, I think, uh, it was sad to see all that leave. I remember going to the Lyric Theater one time seeing a movie, one movie before they tore it down. And I was a little thing then, lived on Deweese Street myself. But that’s where they had their shops, their tailors, their dry cleaners. Uh, they had their restaurants. I mean, club--night clubs. It was where you wanted to be if you wanted to be in the happening. And I think Deweese Street was that; it represented that for us. And Kincaid . . .

BRINSON: Is the Lyric the theater they’re trying to bring back?

WARNER: Yes, uh-huh, and oddly enough people that have gone into the Lyric have said you would be amazed at how well kept it is inside. Other than the roof caving in, the seats and everything was still in good shape. But that’s just how well built that was. Uh, and, and it just reminds me—and to me it was sad because a lot of the elderly people in that community, you know, that was what they looked forward to. That was their history and it was wiped away. You know, the young people—it was like they didn’t care about the history or didn’t know it, because what they were seeing in adults at that time was doom and gloom and no hope. So why would they want to see those old buildings still standing when nobody was doing anything with them? So it, it was just a transitional time for us. We were—and, and being in the Ohio, Chestnut Street neighborhood, it was just a time--we had a lot of elderly people on the Neighborhood Association that was still talked about the old Dunbar, the old—just a lot of the history that was happening. And as a young person, I was, like, man, I was getting excited, you know, like wow we did do something here. And, you know--and we were doing something. And I wanted my children—I wanted somebody to remember that North ( ) was where Isaac Murphy lived, you know. It, it was so much about us we could just point out and say, “Okay, this is where so-and-so”--but then it left, you know; and there we were just sitting there. And the Lyric Theater has reminded us, since its closing in sixty-nine, that we’ve, we’ve, uh--to me the Lyric symbolizes the way the community was: dead. Nothing happening. Just a shallow building full of walking dead people. And that was scary, because how do you teach children to be proud of who they are and want to assert to be something or somebody when the town or everything around them was saying: dead or going to be dead [laughing] you know? So . . .

BRINSON: Now the Roots and Heritage Festival takes place in that area?

WARNER: Right. Right. Because--and this is where I’m leading up to--because, uh, Michael Wilson and Scotty Baesler--we went and met with them, and told them about our ideas for the festival and what we had wanted to do; and that we needed more money. Of course, at that time they were saying, “Well, we’re planning to do a celebration too.” You know, “To celebrate the renovation of, uh, Deweese Street,” which they changed to Rose Street at that time. And even though it was, uh, it was something that we wanted to do--and they had changed the name and everything--we still wanted, we wanted, we needed the resources. So we decided to collaborate and put our efforts together, and make it the Roots and Heritage Festival. It was supposed to have been a one-day, one-time-only thing. Uh, and Mayor Baesler—I was the only lady at the table--so it was a bunch of guys, you know, men at the table; and they were saying, “Well, you, you be in charge of it.” And I was like, “Whoa, I don’t know anything about festivals. What I do?” (laughter—Brinson) So at that time is when we started, we started working and pulling in resources. I knew Ann and Chester had the background as far as the African history and culture; uh, Ed had the expertise coming from Cleveland and some of the things that he was doing. And what I would do was get my kids in the car and I would go to different festivals every, every weekend, you know. I would just get in the car and go look and see what they were doing and, and try to bring back the ideas that I saw them doing and talk to people. I would go down and just ask vendors, “Please take a chance on coming up here to our festival. This is our first time.” You know, “Please come.” And, and they would just—they would somehow--I don’t know why, but they came. Because we didn’t have any vendors; we didn’t have anybody being entrepreneurs. We were just kind of like laying back here waiting on something to happen; and, and, and my thing was, I didn’t—and the idea that the city had was not my idea of a festival. They wanted—only thing they knew was what they were doing, which was Fourth of July and Berea Day and all that, Court Day and all that. That wasn’t my culture so I had to, had to be very assertive in letting people know that that’s not what we wanted. So in order to do that, I had to go and start traveling, and doing, and finding people that would come and represent our culture; and represent who we were, and represent what the festival was about, because I couldn’t get it here.

BRINSON: Right. You mentioned, uh, Chester and Ann knew black history and black culture.

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: How, how were they involved in this?

WARNER: Well, see Chester did—we had hired Chester to do the planning of that and that’s where he came in in doing that. And then Frank Walker was his director over to, over there. He drew the logo at the time, he and Barbara Rosser down at the, uh, public information, because at that time the city had said, “Whatever you need, we will support you in.” Uh, and at that time Mary ( ), the person who was the person over special events was supposed to assist me; but, like I said, at that time their res-, their ideas were limited based on what they knew, and based on what I had seen was not what I wanted.

BRINSON: Right. And they gave you a budget where you had some money obviously.

WARNER: Yeah.

BRINSON: Do you remember what . . .

WARNER: It was like $10,000, but--and the Mayor, what he did was--because he and Alex Haley were friends--he brought Alex Haley in and he paid for that while we took the money and did what we needed to do with the other . . .

BRINSON: How did the Mayor ever get to be friends with Alex Haley?

WARNER: I don’t know. He had an association with him. I don’t know how he did it, you know, but that—they knew each other somehow and he brought him in here. And, and it was so phenomenal because Alex Haley spoke about the importance of what we were doing. And I think that sent a message to the Mayor--that sent a message to this community that we were on target; that we had something that was good and it was, and it was going to be very informational. It was going to be the thing that Lexington needed to connect with the world, because for the first time we were doing something that was going to make us stretch out further than the . . . seventy-five. And it did, you know, and, like I said, the first year . . .

BRINSON: The first year was . . . twelve years?

WARNER: Eighty-nine.

BRINSON: Eighty-nine.

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: 1989.

WARNER: Yeah, and that was when Hurricane Hugo was here. We did--and we had to move to Dunbar and Russell school. And the vendors that came, came from Cincinnati and different places ‘cause to even sell fish—we didn’t even have anybody here that was even willing to sell fish. I had went to every leader here in this town, every church in this town to get them to buy in to what we were doing. Nobody wanted to. So, I mean--and then here I had the city and everybody that was fussing at me about, “Why you want to have an African festival? Why you want to do this?” So it was like I was in—I was getting it from both ends ‘cause black people were saying—here were the people that were sitting dormant and it looked like nothing was happening. And here I was asking to resurrect something and bring something to life, and here I had people over here that didn’t want to be reminded that we were even existing. So I, you know, so I cried a whole lot. I mean, for the, like the first three or four years, I cried a whole lot. And if it wasn’t for people that was around me, that I had surrounded me--like the Grundys and Ed Holmes and others that said, “Catherine, you’re on the right track. Don’t give up.” And people that I had met and formed relationships outside of this town that said, “Catherine, keep going. You’re doing the right thing.” And it, it was those relationships that made me stronger and made me continue. But--and, and working at the bank, you know, and doing that--what I was doing was taking my vacation time. And I had been there long enough to take vacation and, um, take vacation days, and go into different towns and do things that I needed to do. And during Roots and Heritage time, I would take my vacation in order to get it done.

BRINSON: Uh, has Ann been involved all along?

WARNER: Oh yes. Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: In, in what ways?

WARNER: Well, Ann—Ann’s been probably, probably the silent board member--chair, whatever; because Chester’s always been over the entertainment. Ann has been the one that we bounce things off of, uh, and to see if we’re going in the right direction. She’s always done the fair, the African Fashion Fair. She always did that part of it ‘cause she used to have her own business, so she always was into that part. Ann has been the one that, uh--she wasn’t one to come to the meetings and actually be over a certain part; but Ann would be the one very instrumental in making sure that the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed, that we were putting the right projection out there; that we wasn’t sending any messages that we couldn’t back up with our history.

BRINSON: I didn’t know she had a fashion, African fashion business.

WARNER: Well, she . . .

BRINSON: ( )

WARNER: Well, it used to be called All Things African, and she would sell African clothing, African, you know, bracelets, jewelry, and stuff like that. So, yeah.

BRINSON: And she would sell them at the festival also?

WARNER: Well, not so much at the festival. She would just sell it out of her house. She just was interested in people wearing and having some part of their culture with them, so she would sell it at different points in time. She sold at the festival maybe a few times but I don’t think—because she was so caught up in the festival that she really couldn’t man a table and do that stuff too.

BRINSON: So, um, this is the twelfth year or the thirteenth year . . .

WARNER: Yes, twelfth year.

BRINSON: . . . coming up in September?

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And what’s your budget look like today?

WARNER: Well, we last year spent over ninety-some thousand dollars.

BRINSON: And where did you raise that money?

WARNER: Well, doing what I do now is go and be in people’s face and just ask for sponsorship. Uh, we’ve been, uh—the Mayor, of course, has raised it to $35,000, their contribution, uh, but vending, you know, the vending, the revenue from that. And, luckily, I think having Lexington—a lot of people that’s in Lexington now are transit, you know; They come from other cities, and most of them from larger cities. So you end up having, uh, getting speakers and chairs that don’t have the mentality that Lexington used to have. Unfortunately, we’re still struggling with some of it, but they are coming in with the idea that community involvement is important to them. So what they’ve done and learned in the long run is that: what I put in this community I get back triple time anyway, so why don’t I give them something? So we’ve gotten a lot of people to come on board and give, you know, a nice donations but nearly not what they would give to other people. But we are getting donations.

BRINSON: Now, you said the very first festival was one-day.

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: What’s it like now?

WARNER: We, uh, a month. It’s a month long. We start from the beginning of September to the end.

BRINSON: Okay.

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And tell me about some of the activities.

WARNER: Well, the first year we had—we tried to do it all at one time. We did the street festival, and then we did the gospel program in conjunction with the speaker; which was Alex Haley. And we did it, uh, at Russell and Dunbar and ran us crazy. Then we run over to Transylvania where Alex Haley and the gospel program was, so it was like we were just going crazy. So at that time the churches wouldn’t really buy into what we were doing because they thought, “We don’t want to be part of a secular thing.” So we gave them their own day. So when the next year, when it came around, we asked them to sponsor the gospel program. And so we split that off. And then we did just one street festival, and the gospel program the second time we did it. Then the next time Mary Ella Smith from Frames and Fine Art, after the third year said, “Why don’t I do a art program and bring in a famous artist?” And so she came in on Friday night and brought the artist in at the Living Arts and Science Center. And would bring people in like Annie Lee, Betty Honeycutt and people like that . . . Brenda Honeycutt, I’m sorry. And, uh, so that’s how all that started with three days. And then other people would come in, “Well, why don’t we do a golf tournament?” I met D.K. Garth at the Bank One Golf Classic one year and they said, “Why don’t we do a golf tournament?” So we started a golf tournament in conjunction with it. Lucille Ross came in, “Why don’t we--I had ideas of wanting to do a parade ever since I had seen Tennessee State do it--so when Lucille asked, I said, “Why don’t you head that up for me?” And she was coming in from Atlanta so she had ideas of what I wanted. So she heads up the parade part of it. Then we had people—we have, uh, we had a play--we were doing plays but it was like we were bringing in plays, and I didn’t like the caliber of plays that people were bringing in here. So when Deb Shaws became Director of Actor’s Guild, she asked could she do plays. And Deb understood the quality and the character that I wanted and, and with respect and said, “Hey I can do this and want to do it.” And she took it, and she’s been doing it ever since for us down at Actor’s Guild. So what we’ve done is learn how—people that want to do things is pretty much let them do it, and incorporate it into the Roots and Heritage. ‘Cause what’s-happening people know that the crowd and the name is out there so why don’t they incorporate something with that. So we have the Comedy Off-Broadway which is, you know, out there at Lexington Green. We do a comedy night and we, when we do that, the proceeds from the comedy show we put back out into grassroot organizations for kids; like if they need uniforms or educational scholarships or whatever we need for that. We do that for them. We also do a Unity Health Ball, because one year Mary Ella got sick and one of the other ladies who does our tee shirts had breast cancer. And it was just overwhelming the illness that was in our committee, and I said, “Why don’t we do something to make people aware that these illnesses are there, and that people need to know where to go to get these resources.” Uh, so, Mark Johnson from the Health Department--African-American Health Network--came on board and I asked him to do a health fair. So he started setting up a health tent out on the street at the festival. But in conjunction with that, the ( ) wanted to do a walk for health and hunger. So they did that. And then we do the body and soul festival after that, which we have—I wanted—this is my dream, is to get the African-American doctors and system, whatever, professionals in the house so that we can know they’re in the community. Access, uh, tap into their resources and let people know who they are, you know--and also just letting them know that we’re concerned about health. If we don’t start taking care of ourselves—eating all the wrong things, doing all the wrong things to our bodies, you know--we can be as religious as we want, but we keep messing up this body which God is within, then we’re not doing God any justice. So I asked if Rosie Smith and some others--and then I had this idea to have the, all the sororities and fraternities to come on board and actually put it on. And that’s what they did. That was the first time they had come together jointly, all the fraternities and sororities, and Masonic leagues, and Swahilis and everybody--clubs would come together and actually put this ball on. And it’s called the Unity Health Ball, and the proceeds from that Unity Health Ball goes to the African American Health Network to help with people who can’t afford medication, who doesn’t know how to access resources; ‘cause we have a lot of seniors who’d rather sit back and get part of their medication because they can’t afford it. We no longer want people to be in that situation. We want people to be able to access the resources, and we will pay their doctor bill; and we will pay their medication; and what we will also do for the first time is to sit down and say, “This is where you need to go to get this.” And we will connect them with these resources so that nobody can be without the help that they need. So all of the money that we raise like that, we have a ticket item on. We put it back out in the community, either to the kids or to the elders. And so we, we come up with that. We also do the basketball tournament, which Charlie Givens up the Salvation Army is over that. We have old-timers come in and play, and we also bring—they play each other--and we also bring the kids in and let them play and cheer and do that too. Uh, we do a literary reading which—you know, reading is so important that Crystal Wilkinson and Frank Walker and them head up out of the Carnegie Center. They do that and they--what they’re doing this year, they’ve--since Frank and Crystal both are published authors now--they’re coming in and they’re doing a workshop, a writing workshop in August, next month. And then they going to allow these same people to do readings at the literary program on that Thursday. So that, that’s happening. Uh, uh, I’m trying to think of the other things that’s going on.

BRINSON: So, I believe you all just got an award from the state?

WARNER: Yeah, we got the award, uh, I think in ninety-eight, for the Community Arts Award; and that was from the Governor, the Governor’s Community Arts Award. We, we just received one last, uh, early this year from the downtown Lexington group for the, also for the arts and unity. So, we’ve, we’ve received several awards for the Roots and Heritage Festival based on, you know, just trying to bring the community together, ( ) awards and stuff.

BRINSON: Do you have any idea, Catherine, at this point, how many people participate in some way?

WARNER: We’ve had the police officers kind of estimate at what we’re doing and they’re saying that we, that it’s over forty-thousand when you look at the whole month of activities, and things that we’re doing. We also, we, we-- the library has come on board this year wanting to do some things. And a lot of people have come in wanting to do forums during--periodically throughout the month, so that we can get information out. Whether it be with schools, whether it be with the justice system or whatever we’re doing; so we have a lot of people now seeing their best effort is to come when something’s already happening, especially with voter registration and education.

BRINSON: You’ve certainly done a wonderful job with it and the variety of activities is just amazing. Is there something though that you still want to do that you haven’t been able to with the festival?

WARNER: Well, we—I forgot, we do do a speaker every year too. But one of the things that I would like to see happen with the festival--this would be a dream come true--would be to have Lexington embrace this festival, uh, because it’s the right thing to do. And I mean that in a way that they support other events, support this festival and--because that seems to be the struggle, that seems to be the reason we can’t get from—I mean, we’re growing every year, and we’re doing the things that we, we can possibly do, but there’s so much more to do. There’s information that we need to come together and talk about education with these kids . . .

BRINSON: I have to turn the tape over.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE TWO

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

WARNER: . . . as something that’s black and different instead of looking at it as something that’s needed and wanted in this community. And embrace it as part of history and a part of culture, instead of looking at it as something that’s, that’s negative, you know. And, and I still feel that--I still get calls from people calling me, “Why do you want to have a black festival?” You know. “Why do you . . .?” And, and it’s just ignorance. And I think that because of the ignorance, we can’t—this town can’t do what it needs to do. They can’t see past the, the, the history of this festival to see the blessing in it. And there are a lot of blessings in it. This town has—to me, I think this festival has been about promoting entrepreneurship. We have more business from Lexington now than we’ve ever had. People are selling something, I don’t know, from jewelry to tee shirts to food. We have people actually embracing themselves, and I always tell people, “Just because I love myself don’t mean I have to hate anybody.” And that’s not where we going. We’re trying to just say, “In order for me”—if you look at the commandments that said that, “Love thyself,” how can I do that if I don’t know myself? You know. And first I think that that’s what the festival is about. It’s about loving oneself and embracing that culture and that history in order for me to accept and embrace anybody else. And you’re asking me to love someone I know nothing about and hate myself, that I should be knowing a whole bunch about. So I, I think all of that . . .

BRINSON: You’re a black festival. I wonder, though, if you attract whites, any of the Mexican immigrants, other . . .?

WARNER: Yeah, we--I think, I think that more, uh, whites are coming out, and I think it’s because their children and the world is changing to where that you can no longer be in your secluded world. And it’s not a black festival. It’s a Roots and Heritage Festival. And we all know how the beginning of time started, so if you look at that, then it’s about everybody’s roots and heritage, you know. But it’s based on African-American culture ‘cause that’s the one that’s missing. That’s the one that’s not being showcased in this town anywhere, you know, and we have to have it. We need that. We need that in order for us to gain strength from. We need a time of, of reconciliation. We need a time of healing. We need a time—and we need it around celebrating. We don’t need it to be doom and gloom when somebody die—we don’t want this to be a death; we want this to be a time of rebirth. And I think that’s what Roots and Heritage represents every year when it comes to be is a rebirth of somebody gaining something, getting something in order to help them move a little further where they need to be. And, uh, I just look at the economics that it brings into this town. I mean, we put out money, we spend money, we—I mean, you know; and when you look at a town like Lexington, and with the limited businesses that, African-American businesses, in this town—we--all our resources, all our money go out to the European-Americans. And I’m saying if it does, then show us you’re grateful by giving us at least a time to celebrate who we are.

BRINSON: Do you think you get blacks coming from outside the area to attend the festival?

WARNER: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

BRINSON: Where, where would they come from?

WARNER: Oh, we get them—I mean, we get people that come back home from California.

BRINSON: Right.

WARNER: Uh, we get people come from New York. I mean, people, a lot of people come from Cincinnati, Louisville, Harrodsburg, uh, Owensboro. I mean, uh, have people come up from Atlanta. And, and a lot of people that come up here, the one thing they tell me is this festival is unique, that it’s not like any other festival they’ve been to, even though they have a lot of them in New York and a lot of them in Atlanta. They say—as a matter of fact, a lot of our vendors come here because they like it.

BRINSON: There’s one in Chicago this weekend actually.

WARNER: Yeah. Yeah. And they tell us all the time, they say this one is different in that even as city as we think we might want to be, we still got the country, uh, country attitude. I mean, we still speak, we still talk, we still laugh, we still do all the things that embrace each other. And you know--and we still a family, you know; and, and when people—and, and there’s a calmness about it. It’s a different spirit. And I think it’s because of location: because all those ancestors are rejoicing and they’re blessing this festival. And, and I think that that spirit has made this festival what it is. It has nothing to do with myself or anybody else. I think it has something to do with the spirit that this festival has taken on. And, and I think the people that started the old colored fair years ago are rejoicing because we’re doing something again. And we’re holding up people that once was here; and I think any time you do that, you get a blessing in that.

BRINSON: You mentioned at one point a man who had written a history of the black community.

WARNER: Jim Emery.

BRINSON: Jim Emery?

WARNER: Yeah. Yeah.

BRINSON: That’s E . . .

WARNER: E-M-B-R-Y.

BRINSON: Do you know where I would find a copy of that?

WARNER: Uh, I--I have a copy. I’ll try and get you a copy of that because—and Jim will have one too, and Ann will have his phone number. I don’t have Jim’s phone number with—I don’t think I do.

BRINSON: It’s in the phone book . . .

WARNER: He’s under The House Doctor because that—yeah, because he fixes houses and stuff like that. But he, he has one but he knows a lot of the history. Jim is from Richmond and, uh, and he’s very brilliant. I mean, he has five kids and all five of them are engineers.

BRINSON: Wow.

WARNER: Yeah and his, his—I mean, one daughter, and all of them are engineers. But this guy is brilliant and, and he’s just took it upon himself to research the history of this town. So if you’re talking to him, you talk--he can give you a lot more about it than I can.

BRINSON: Okay.

WARNER: Great, great person to know.

BRINSON: I want to ask you to talk a little bit about the NIA Camp, but . . .

WARNER: NIA.

BRINSON: NIA. Tell me what NIA stands for.

WARNER: NIA is a ( ) Swahili word, one of the seven principles of the ( ) which is Kwanza, uh, and NIA means Purpose.

BRINSON: N-I-A?

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: It’s capital letters, right?

WARNER: Yeah, we just put it capital but it’s Nia. It’s, it’s just Nia. Uh-huh, means Purpose.

BRINSON: How did that begin?

WARNER: Well, Ann—like I said, she had had a camp in Louisville at the, uh . . . I’m trying to think of the house.

BRINSON: Plymouth House.

WARNER: Plymouth House. They had done a lot of work with kids there, and she wanted to do something here. And she just started gathering kids and parents together and, and started doing things, teaching them their, their history. And we would have dancing, singing and then at the end of it, we would have a big feast. We would bring different foods and let people try them and it—because we had a lot—Ann has a lot of connection with the African students and, and people in this community, they would bring in different dishes. And, you know, we just cook up things and have a big feast. And so that’s how it started. And we used to just take kids around Lexington and show them the history of Lexington, and where we fit in and where we didn’t fit in. And we would take them to the Lexington Cemetery, talk about the history there, uh, just a lot of things, where the slaves were sold downtown. So these kids got to know a lot about Lexington. But as we were talking, we thought about—we would tell them about other places. Well, we noticed that when we would do that, they couldn’t conceive it. They couldn’t conceive that things were actually happening outside this town that was for the betterment of themselves. So there was some money available one year--and I don’t know what, what money it was--from the City, but we got wind of it that they had like $10,000 available. And they wanted to spend it in the inner city for kids or something. And what we did was, we wrote the grant and wrote it, and we did an underground railroad. And when we did that, we had a guy come from Minnesota. His name was Kamal Kumbui. He came in and he first took us through a regiment of exercises here in Lexington. We went—like one of the things we did, we did a whole lot of studying. We went on UK’s campus and he had us studying about the Underground Railroad and what was going to take place. Then the third night we went over to Jacobson Park, and they locked us in. We did exercises during the day and at night they locked us in. And he took us through the park at night and taught us how they survived in the underground railroad: how to read the trees, what kind of leaves—just a whole lot of stuff--and, and taught kids how to—one of the exercises they had to do, there was a rope and everybody had to get over this rope and it meant freedom. But nobody could get over unless everybody got over. And nobody could touch the rope. So they had to figure out—it took them hours to figure out how to get everybody over this rope to freedom and, and to let—and for everybody to be a part of it. And finally somebody told them how to do it. The guys who could jump the rope, we let them lift people over. But it meant freedom to them and nobody could do it unless they all could get there. And so that was symbolic in a lot of different ways. So we did that. And then on that Thursday morning we left and went to, uh, and started on the Underground Railroad toward Canada. And we took kids—we took two buses, two Greyhound buses. We left Lexington . . .

BRINSON: That’s roughly, what, eighty-some . . .?

WARNER: We had ninety-six people. We had a van with us with ninety-six . . .

BRINSON: When did this start?

WARNER: Uh, it started—when did NIA Camp start? NIA started probably in eighty-seven. In eighty-seven. And we took the kids, uh, in, uh, ninety--I think ninety-four or ninety-six, one of those, we took the kids. That’s when we took the Underground Railroad trip. Uh, but up until then we were doing all the things around town and to Louisville. Louisville was coming up here showing us different things, and then, like I said, we took all these kids up to—we went to Wilberforce up there at their African-American museum up there. Went to Michigan and Wayne State and did all that. Then we went over to Canada. And when we went over the border it was like, we told them, we said, “We’re free!” You know, it was like we reenacted the whole thing. And we got up there. We stayed in one of the college dorms up there, Windsor. And we just went through. We met ( ) Hinson’s great-granddaughter up there, which you know who he is. And then we—I mean, we looked at old slave graves, we looked at—they started telling us a lot of history. We started ( ). We did a whole lot of things up in Canada and then as a treat we took the kids to Niagara Falls. And that seemed to be the real highlight. The kids loved to be around that water cause nobody’d ever been. It was wonderful, having ninety-six kids out on this boat with these blue raincoats on. It was just . . .

BRINSON: How many adults?

WARNER: We had maybe eleven or twelve adults.

BRINSON: And, and the kids were what age?

WARNER: They ranged from like—we had them from four to about twenty-one.

BRINSON: Oh.

WARNER: Uh-hmm. They . . .

BRINSON: How do you open that up? I mean, how do you decide who gets to go?

WARNER: Well, most of the kids were part of our NIA group from years past, you know, cause we had been doing NIA. Uh, some of them were parents and kids that wanted to come, you know, when they heard we were going and they bought their—you know, of course, the young kids had their parents with them. Uh, and they had cousins, I mean, it doesn’t take long to, to decide. But it was kind of first-come-first—you know, got to register and go. And plus they had to, like I said, they had to participate in the first three days of rituals that, that we had went through. They couldn’t just come up on that Thursday morning and decide they were going. This was something that was already preplanned.

BRINSON: So you were actually gone for how long?

WARNER: We went—we came back maybe that Sunday night. We were back in town on that Sunday night.

BRINSON: The whole camp experience is the three days plus . . .

WARNER: Yeah, we had like over a week. It was a week. We started really from that Sunday to that Sunday.

BRINSON: Okay.

WARNER: Because that Sunday night is when Brother Kamal came in. Let’s see, he came in that Saturday. That Sunday we kind of went through the rituals. We had to take him out to Jacobson Park, let him feel his way through it. So Monday is when we started the classes, and then Wednesday we did the whole thing in Jacobson Park. Thursday morning we boarded the buses, and we came back to Lexington Sunday night.

BRINSON: I was just trying to get a sense of how, how long it actually is. It’s about a week.

WARNER: Yeah.

BRINSON: The model is about a week.

WARNER: Right, uh-huh. And what we’ve done since then, we’ve, we took the kids more down South. Every spring—we were doing it during the summer, that year we did it during the summer—but at the time I was still working at the bank, so I took vacation time. Uh, and Ann was working at Re-Ed so she was taking vacation time, so a lot of us--but then Ann got a new job at Teen Center. I got, you know, so I was still working, of course. But what was happening was we felt like it was more important to do it during spring break ‘cause kids was getting jobs, some of my kids were getting jobs, summer jobs and stuff. So it was easy to do it during spring break when kids were already out and everybody was out, so we started doing the spring break trip. And so we started taking kids to black colleges, all the culture down South. So they’ve gone to the Civil Rights Institute, they’ve gone to plantations down in New Orleans, uh, they’ve gone by the Atlantic Ocean—we always try to take them by water cause we feel like that’s important for them to see bodies of water because they don’t here in Lexington. Uh, they’ve gone to Nashville, they’ve gone—I mean, these kids have traveled. We’ve gone to Piney Woods in Mississippi, uh, you name it, most of the places we’ve tried to hit on the tour. And every year we get kids that just love going because—and each year I can see the change in them. And, and one of the things that we do on the NIA trip is that we, we, we--they do a report card. They go on and, and each day they get points and these points add up. And on the last day, these kids they stand up on the bus—we do like a grading system—we stand, they stand up and each child--we evaluate them by day, ‘cause we’re keeping notes, you know, in our head mentally and everything--so these kids stand up and then we’ll say, “Oh, they did good today. They helped so-and-so.” Or, “They did this.” And usually the person that rooms with them, the adult that rooms with them, knows a little bit more so they will speak on their behalf. And these kids get a dollar for each day. So, you know, it kind of ends up being like ten to fifteen dollars sometimes when they get—and we always give them a, some kind of little present, teddy bear or something—when, you know, too. And one of the things that they do, then they come back and grade us. And they get up in the front of the bus--each, you know, each one of them will get up in front of the bus--and they’ll tell us their experience, what it meant to them. Uh, they’ll tell us how grateful they are to us or even they’ll tell us, “You all were too hard on us. We want to do this next year.” So it’s, it’s been really a, a family thing and a union because they now—we see them all over the place and they’ll go, “Miss Warner what you doing next?” you know. So I know that it’s important to them to get out. They can’t take any Walkmans, any, anything like that that’s going to be distracting from what—‘cause the school, the bus is their school; and on there we’re showing videos of the civil rights, we’re doing The Eyes on the Prize, we’re doing movies, we’re doing—and we’re talking. They’re making jewelry. There’s a lot of things going on on that bus so . . .

BRINSON: Making what?

WARNER: Jewelry. We do a little jewelry-making and stuff on the bus.

BRINSON: Jewelry.

WARNER: Jewelry, uh-huh. And they also write in their journals so it’s, it’s a classroom on wheels. And what we’ve done--and they can’t do--and what they have to do, is be respectful, of course; and, and they are. I mean, we have the best kids that go on this trip, and some of the parents are really worried like, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen to them?” And these kids come back different kids. And, and you’d be surprised. They get on the bus and everybody doesn’t know each other by the time we leave. When we come back and dock back on the bus, everybody’s hugging and crying and wanting to know--keep up with each other. You know, it’s, it’s a bond and it’s a union; because we took them out of here, which was familiar, gave them something that was unfamiliar to them but good for them, and they come back here different kids.

BRINSON: How often do you do . . .

WARNER: We do it once a year. We do it during spring break.

BRINSON: Spring break. Okay. What does it cost to put on a . . .

WARNER: Well, it, it costs maybe twenty-some thousand dollars. What we do is also get sponsorship again. We get sponsorship for it and we also—we--you know--we kind of raise money. Of course, Ann’s job now part of this so they kick in—the Health Department kicks in because that’s—now that she’s Director of the Teen Center, that’s what part of it goes with them. And also, uh, this--the Mayor gives money. And, uh, and if we have money from Roots and Heritage, we try to donate, you know, some of it back to it too. But most of it--we ask the kids to pay one hundred dollars and most of them--I mean, for a trip like that. Uh, this year we had to raise it to two hundred because, of course, the buses, the gas and everything went up and hotels went up; so we had to ask for two hundred. But when you talk two hundred, and you don’t have to worry about food and board; room and board and transportation. . . . And we provide the journals. We provided everything else so . . .

BRINSON: How do you handle food for a group that size?

WARNER: Well, we have a van that goes with us, and we have like juices and snacks and stuff all on the cooler. And what we do is try to get—and we always—Ann has connections or we, we find connections through somebody to where they can have a decent meal. We try to go to black-owned restaurants so they can have a different experience. Uh, and we go to, like usually they’ll give us, you know, pretty good deals on—if you bring in X amount of people, we may pay them $600 to feed all of us for . . .

BRINSON: . . . lot of people.

WARNER: Right. And we do—and usually hotels that we go to have continental breakfast so they get to eat their breakfast there. And lunchtime, we’re on the road, we give each kid $5 so that takes care of their lunch. And dinner, we try to have a nice sit-down dinner for them.

BRINSON: What a great event.

WARNER: Yeah. And they usually eat—we try to make sure that they eat fruits and vegetables. I mean, you know, make sure they get that ‘cause we tell them—we talk to them about health and we talk to them about difference in the food. Even if you don’t like it, try it, and even--then after you don’t like it, okay, but at least try it. Don’t just turn your nose up to something because you aren’t familiar with it. Just try it. And usually once they try—like we went to New Orleans and little kids was—and we had them try shrimp poorboys. At first these kids were like, “Oh, I don’t like it.” They tried it, loved it. You know, so it was like we want to try, turn them on to something different, you know. And now these kids are just like, buzzing, they want to do something.

BRINSON: You mentioned that with Ann’s new job at the Bluegrass . . .?

WARNER: As the Director of Bluegrass Aspendale Teen Center, uh-huh.

BRINSON: . . . this is part of her job. What responsibilities does she have now?

WARNER: Well, she’s the Director of the Teen Center which incorporates all the, you know--all the--most of the kids up in Aspendale that comes to that center for tutoring, uh, for—and she tries to get them life skills. They have all kinds of programs going on, excuse me, like the summer program is going on now. Today they’re taking them to Kentucky State. Tomorrow we’re taking them to the Indianapolis Black Expo. So, you know, we do little things like that but that’s what her--her job is getting these kids ready to do something with their life. And if they need—and schooling is one of the, that’s the top priority, education. But we know that sometimes you can’t get everything just by sitting in one building.

BRINSON: But the NIA--Camp, NIA . . .

WARNER: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: . . . that comes now under the Teen Center . . .

WARNER: Yeah, she’s kind of incorporated that in the Teen Center because all those kids get to go on that trip, depending on behavior, you know, and other things.

BRINSON: Did Chester get involved in that?

WARNER: Yeah, Chester’s, you know, being her husband, he’s, he’s always involved. And Chester usually is one of the male adults that go because we do need males to go with us. So he goes and he films and Chester—I don’t know how well you know Chester--but Chester’s very meticulous about education. And Chester has a library of films and tapes and everything, so his job, basically, is he selects the right tapes and things that—when we, when we map out where we’re going, Chester can find tapes that are related that we show on the bus. And he monitors—he does all that and he videotapes and does a lot of picture-taking and stuff.

BRINSON: How about their daughters?

WARNER: They are involved too. I mean, my daughter . . . everybody--kids kind of get involved in this because it becomes our life, you know. How do you do something with other kids and not involve yours?

BRINSON: Right.

WARNER: You know. So they’ve learned that being our children has not been an easy task because you have to share, you know. My daughter says all the time she, she hates that, she—you know, sometimes she hates me being so popular because, you know, people know her now. And of course when she’s trying to do something, you know, she doesn’t want . . .

BRINSON: How old is she?

WARNER: She’s sixteen.

BRINSON: You mentioned you have three children.

WARNER: I have two sons and a daughter. Uh-huh. My oldest son is married and living in Cincinnati.

BRINSON: Oh.

WARNER: And my youngest son is still trying to find himself. He’s twenty-two.

BRINSON: Okay. So she’s the youngest.

WARNER: Yeah, she’s the youngest and I’m ready to ship her off to boarding school in September because she was going to Lexington School from kindergarten until ninth grade. Uh . . .

BRINSON: Where are you sending her?

WARNER: To New Hampshire, to Plymouth, New Hampshire, The Holderness School.

BRINSON: Oh.

WARNER: And, uh, went in public school one year and, I tell you, that has been the disaster. I mean, I, I—and this was a blessing in disguise. The guy came down here recruiting. I didn’t know anything about, you know, boarding schools or anything else. All I knew was I needed to get her out of this system because she was going to die here, you know.

BRINSON: And tell me the name of the school again.

WARNER: The Holderness School.

BRINSON: Holderness?

WARNER: Uh-huh. It’s not a religious-based--it’s just called The Holderness School.

BRINSON: How do you spell that?

WARNER: H-O-L-D-E-R-N-E-S-S.

BRINSON: So somebody’s name . . .

WARNER: Yeah. I, I don’t know if it has something to do with the New England history or something up in that area or not. But . . .

BRINSON: Is she looking forward to it?

WARNER: Yes, she is. She realizes that this, this has not been a very good year for her in the public school setting, um, and she wants to go . She wants to get out of Lexington, you know.

BRINSON: Catherine, are people in the black community, and white community too I guess, in Lexington following the whole school litigation out of Louisville; and the efforts of the black families to go back to Central High School at all?

WARNER: Yeah, I think that we are. I don’t know that the black community is. I know, uh, a few of us are because we’re concerned about the educational system here in Lexington. And we’re concerned at the lack of connecting that the community is making against the failure in the community. It’s a lot of people that are--just don’t get it. That, you know, these kids—we’re, we’re now grooming criminals. That’s all we’re doing in the school system. Any time a jailer can build a new jail and predict that in five years he’s going to outgrow it, and we’ve got a school system that can’t predict that our kids are going to read any better or get better as far as the achievement gap here, then we’re grooming criminals.

BRINSON: I read, uh, a piece in the paper here recently where Stanford Roach was calling for more black history in the curriculum.

WARNER. Right. Right.

BRINSON: Uh, to what extent is black history in the school curriculum here? Not enough.

WARNER: No, it’s, it’s not enough. And when I was--when I came through the system, of course, I only saw one slave picture. I don’t remember having anything else. And, and, I, I think it’s important. I think that we need it but I think that we cannot ask this system to do what this community won’t do, you know? You understand what I’m saying?

BRINSON: I’m not sure.

WARNER: I think that this community has not demanded that this system do what it’s supposed to do. And, I mean, history is one part of it, but there’s a whole lot of other things that I think we need to get behind. Putting it in a book that I can’t read doesn’t mean anything. If you can’t make me—make these teachers and these principals and people accountable for making sure that I at least can read that once you put it in a book, then what’s the good of putting it in a book? Because everybody can say, “It’s over there.” But if I can’t read it, it doesn’t--it’s still the same issues. So it, it bothers me that we have not seen this education system as not a black thing, but the white thing again, you know. It’s like everything that involves black people. It’s almost like the white community separates itself from it when really the problem is that until white people, Hispanics and everybody come together and make it better for all of us, then all of us going to stay stagnated because somebody has to stay down here to keep me down, you know. And this community is going to be still behind and grooming criminals and miseducated people, and we’re going to look stupid when we go out of here. So I’m saying why would businesses or anybody want to come in here to this town when we still are grooming criminals?

BRINSON: Right. Uh, I’m coming to an end here . . .

WARNER: Okay.

BRINSON: . . . but--of what I wanted to ask you--but I wonder, given all of this, how do you feel about the future of the black community in Lexington at this time?

WARNER: I think that it’s hopeful. I’m, I’m feeling . . . how do I feel about it? Uh, I feel that there’s hope here. And I, I know that as long as I’m here I will try to do my best to make sure that somebody sees a light. I think that our kids--it scares me. That’s the reason why I’m doing my best, not only to send my daughter out of here, but try to get other kids to get up out of Lexington to do schooling somewhere else. I, I just think that it’s frightening. It really is because if, if you don’t know any better you can’t do any better. And I think that this system has a way of making sure that we’re not going to know any better. It would keep you right here in this town doing the same old things, uh, and repeating the same mistakes without telling you that you’re making mistakes. I think that any time that ninety-five per—so many of the prison population is African-American, that’s scary. Uh, that we not, that we--I’m hoping that one good thing is that we start bonding with the Hispanic community and, and bridge that gap. The language gap, or whatever it is, the communication, I think that we need to do that. That’s important. I think as far as the black community--the elders here--I think that we’ve not done what we needed to do, that’s myself included, uh, to make sure this community does right by our kids, uh, and does right by us as a people. I, I think we’re fearful, and it’s that same slave mentality still existing that we’re fearful of doing right for ourselves because we’re afraid somebody’s going to say that we, we’re racists or we’re, we’re being discriminatory against somebody else. But my answer to that is, you know, I think that until all of us get up there together we’re not—none of us going to be there. The same thing I was telling you about the rope. If we all don’t reach freedom, then none of us are reaching it. So, uh, I’m, I’m hurting for this community, I’m hurting for my babies, I’m hurting for my elders. And I think that’s what keeps me going is because I know that I’m here to stand for something and I, and I will. And if I’m wrong, I’ll say I’m sorry and apologize and keep moving. But I don’t mean to hurt anybody. I just want to start loving myself and embracing my people, and letting us know that there’s a lot to embrace and there’s a lot to love, and with the fact that it doesn’t mean I have to hate anybody else. But I think people that have that mindset of bigotry on their mind, they can’t see beyond themselves. They see only that I’m supposed to love them and not love myself. And at least if I love myself, don’t express it.

BRINSON: Thank you very much.

WARNER: You’re welcome. [pause]

BRINSON: You were saying that, talking about Ann and Chester and how Chester grew up in . . .

WARNER: In Louisville and Ann grew up in Birmingham. And here I grew up here in Lexington so my, my seeing the things that are happening here in Lexington as far as being progressive for African Americans is going to be different from what they see; because they see it as adults coming in here with their mind already in place, where I’m seeing it as from an African American growing up here, the fears, the pain, the anger, the, the whole, the—I don’t know, the aggravation of trying to get things done here.

END TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE TWO

WARNER: . . . with the King celebration, and things like that that promote positive things back in American. I come from the gut, you know, because I understand what it’s like to make a step. I understand what it’s like to be in a town that have always denied people for making those steps; and have gotten pride, took great pride in public lynchings when people try to make steps. So, to me, I see a lot of people die broken-hearted because they, they tried to do something in this town and everybody beat up on them. So when I come--I come from, from my experience of being a black woman in this town and being rejected. And, and, and it hurts. And from the pain from these kids and what they’re having to experience and can’t articulate because they’ve not been taught how to. I had to learn how to articulate to people because it, it was a way of expressing myself. I’ve always been a talker, but I’d never been a speaker; and still am not a speaker.

BRINSON: Well, you’re certainly very articulate.

WARNER: (laugh) I, I just know what I feel, you know, and, and I know what these babies are feeling, and not knowing their future’s not going to be hanging out on the corner. That’s all they see. And, uh, and I know that Lexington is better than that. I know it is because we’re better than that. But we have to somehow reach into these churches, into this community, and ask white people and Hispanic people to want the best for everybody because I think when you do that, everybody wins. And until we all win, then nobody’s going to get there.

BRINSON: Okay. Thank you.

END OF INTERVIEW